Andrea Haro

by Andrea Haro | Search Marketing Strategy

We pass by them on our commute to work, long road trips, and especially when we are stuck in traffic – that’s right, billboards! Billboards are the original form of using imagery to capture an audience’s attention and drive awareness. In today’s digital world, we can improve upon the original methodology by selectively targeting valuable audiences on the web.

Beyond upping the sophistication of your keyword, topic, placement, demographic, and audience layering, you should also consider honing in on core areas to deploy your display efforts. Recent tests have shown that by being more intentional about initial display launches, you can drive substantial lifts in brand awareness. Keep reading to learn about the benefits of deliberate city targeting, what factors to consider when choosing target areas, and what secondary metrics you should be looking at to evaluate impact.

Targeting select cities will improve your brand-awareness efforts by:

  • Ensuring that your investment is funneled into the areas where you want to drive awareness
  • Allowing you to more confidently measure a lift in brand traffic from those core cities
  • Diving into Google Analytics data, including time on site & direct/organic traffic lift

What to consider when choosing target regions

Lean on any data you have when starting this process. You want to think about the KPIs you can tie back to specific regions. What areas drive the most sales and leads – what areas drive the highest AOV & ROI? What secondary KPIs can you lean on? You can segment your data multiple ways to come up with a set list.

Let’s look at some questions you should ask yourself when choosing target regions. What cities drive the highest number of raw purchases? Add those to your list. What cities drive the highest AOV (there might be some overlap? Add those to your list too. The thought process is that there might be cities that drive a lower number of purchases but a higher AOV. That presents you with the opportunity to scale in higher AOV areas. Are you attending an upcoming tradeshow or event that you want to include in the list too?

After determining your target list, you are ready to start utilizing it within your display efforts.

Measuring impact

Once you have been running long enough to gather sufficient data, you are ready to take a look at what impact targeted display brand-awareness has had on your business. This is by no means an exhaustive list, so feel free to customize it for yourself.

  • Brand lift – You can evaluate whether you saw a pickup in brand searches post display launch. We recommend looking at your brand traffic impressions and clicks. Take it a step further by checking to see if your primary KPIs also saw a pick up.
  • Google Analytics – Did you see overall site traffic pick up in your target areas? On top of a lift in brand searches, hopefully you see your direct and organic search traffic increase. Looking at time on site, did your target traffic spend above average time looking at your site? Driving individuals to your site is the first goal; making sure they are engaged is even better.

Below is an example of brand lift we saw after less than a month of running display efforts.

As an example, we ran city specific display campaigns for a client in our initial display launch. After about one month, we measured overall brand lift in those target areas. Month over month, our target cities posted a 35% lift in impressions, a 36% increase in clicks, and a 205% increase in lead volume. More people were searching for our brand and converting on our brand terms. Compare that to the 73% lift in conversions we saw in our non-target areas. By investing in upper funnel and targeted display tactics, we were able to drive impactful & valuable volume.

Happy city/region/zip code targeting! Contact us to learn more about ways you can improve your display efforts.

 

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